The Impact of Digital Storytelling on EFL learners' Listening Anxiety

Subject Areas : Infomartion Technology

Mehrak  Rahimi ¹ (Associate Professor of English Department, Shahid Rajaei Teacher Training University, Tehran, Iran)
Elham  Soleimany ² (M.A. Student of English Department, Shahid Rajaei Teacher Training University, Tehran, Iran)

Received: 2014-11-12 Accepted : 2015-10-02 Published : 2015-11-01

Keywords: Digital Storytelling, listening anxiety, language learners,

Abstract :

The aim of the present study was investigating the impact of digital storytelling on language learners’ listening anxiety. Sixty intermediate language learners participated in the study and were sampled as the experimental (n=30) and control (n=30) groups. Their entry level listening anxiety was assessed by Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Questionnaire (FLLAQ) with respect to three factors: emotionality, worry, and anticipatory fear. Both groups received listening instruction based on communicative language teaching (pre-listening, listening, and post-listening). Pre-listening and post-listening activities of both groups were the same. For 14 weeks, the experimental group watched and listened to digital stories made by Corel Video Studio Pro X7 in the listening phase of their listening class. Meanwhile, the control group just listened to the narration of the same stories. FLLAQ was used as a posttest to assess participants’ listening anxiety at the end of the experiment. The result of multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed that the listening anxiety of the experimental group lowered significantly at the end of the experiment in comparison to the control group considering the FLLAQ and its three dimensions. Examining the effect sizes, however, showed that the treatment effect was the strongest for lowering emotionality dimension of listening anxiety (partial eta squared=0.773) in comparison to worry (partial eta squared=0.552) and anticipatory fear (partial eta squared=0.247).

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